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As we say goodbye to the Olympics, it’s a good time to reflect on how much work it takes to become among the best in the world. If you believe in the 10,000-hour rule — the premise that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master any skill and that less practice means less success — then it stands to reason that all our Olympians have put in at least that much time perfecting their craft.

Yet we know that athletes who put in the most practice hours don’t necessarily make it to the podium. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the 10,000-hour rule, made popular by Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Outliers, was applied to all domains: business, music, art and sport. They are all vastly different not just in their measures of success, but in the level of skill it takes to be successful. So it makes sense that it’s not a universal construct.

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The 10,000-hour rule has tickled the fancy of researchers, who have published a number of studies putting it to the test in different domains. A recent analysis is by a team of researchers who reviewed more than 6,000 studies looking at the relationship between practice and performance in athletics, which brings us back to the question: How much does practice contribute toward a podium finish?

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The researchers, Brooke Macnamara, David Moreau and David Hambrick, note that sport is an ideal domain in which to put the 10,000-hour rule to the test. Not only is success easily measured, there’s a wealth of data on sports performance, including the volume of practice athletes perform. So they added up all the hours of practice in the athletes’ careers and correlated that number to their performance, making sure to include a broad sample of athletes, from recreational to elite.

Also of interest to the authors is whether the same amount of practice is needed to succeed in team versus individual sports and whether sports like discus, where the athlete controls the speed and direction of the thrown object, responds better to practice than does a sport like volleyball or basketball where the athlete has no control over the pace or direction of the balls played. Do sports that use a ball versus a projectile like a javelin demand more practice? And do sports like beach volleyball and rowing, which are subject to environmental variability — as compared to indoor volleyball or judo, where the environment surrounding the venue is more stable — require more or less practice to achieve success?

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Finally, there are the individual variables in sport, like the age at which deliberate practice is started and whether the volume of practice is as strong a predictor of success among elite, sub-elite and recreational athletes.

With all these variables in mind, the researchers narrowed the field to 34 relevant studies and compiled the data. Their conclusions agreed with previous statements that deliberate practice is important for success, but perhaps not as much as previously thought.

By their calculations, 18 per cent of athletic success can be attributed to time spent practising, leaving more than 80 per cent to other factors. This level of influence held steady regardless of whether the athlete played on a team or competed in an individual sport, played indoors or outdoors or used a ball or another piece of sports equipment. The only instance where the effect of practice was more significant is where the athlete controls the speed of the projectile, be it a dart, discus or shot put.

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As for the volume of exercise needed to achieve success, it varies considerably based on the skill level the sport requires and the level of success attained, with some athletes putting in closer to 13,000 practice hours to achieve mastery in their sport. The average level of practice accumulated by the athletes included in the analysis was 3,949. Keep in mind, however, that the athletes ranged from recreational to Olympians, which is reflected in the average number of hours devoted to deliberate practice.

As for those at the highest level of sport, the data collected suggest that practice had the least effect on their performance, with only a one-per-cent effect between deliberate practice and performance, which suggests at the highest level of sport something more than practice is needed to win gold.

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But perhaps the most interesting finding of the study is that the age an athlete begins a sport has little bearing on their success, which is contrary to the popular belief that getting kids to specialize in a sport early is the pathway to the podium.

“A major finding in our study was that higher skill athletes did not tend to start their sport earlier in childhood than lower skill athletes,” said the study’s authors. “Also when comparing higher skill and lower skill athletes, differences in starting ages were not associated with different amounts of accumulated deliberate practice. This finding is inconsistent with the argument that earlier starting ages in childhood are associated with higher levels of athletic achievement later on.”

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So if practice only contributes to about one-fifth of an athlete’s success, what accounts for the other 80 per cent? Genetics for sure, which play a role in aerobic and anaerobic power, aerobic endurance, the ability to build muscle and the type of build (muscular, tall, lean, short) an athlete has to work with. Or as the saying goes, you can’t teach tall.

Additional factors related to athletic success include competitive experience and the various psychological aspects of performance that fall under the general category of mental toughness and preparedness.

What does this mean for the athlete looking to reach the podium?

“Athletes, parents, recruiters, and coaches can use this knowledge to weigh the importance of deliberate practice and the associated time and financial investment against the athlete’s enjoyment of the sport; the athlete’s desire to engage in other forms of domain-relevant experience (e.g., unstructured play with friends, playing other sports); and how well the athlete’s physical, cognitive, and psychological characteristics lend themselves to acquiring skill in a given sport,” said the study’s authors.

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